Star Tribune
Bulk of police force resigns in northern Minnesota’s Moose Lake
DULUTH — Interim Police Chief Chad Pattison is a force of one overseeing law enforcement of the northeastern Minnesota city of Moose Lake.
Two officers resigned from the typically five-person force last month, and two others, including the chief, last summer. This week, its City Council could decide to stick with a Moose Lake force or sign a contract with Carlton County to have four of its deputies oversee it, a controversial choice in the city of 2,600.
“It’s small-town America,” Pattison said, “and people want to keep their police department. They love their law enforcement here.”
Moose Lake, 40 minutes southwest of Duluth, is the latest in a string of small Minnesota towns struggling to keep up with public safety demands amid increasing costs and a shortage of officers throughout the state.
The entire police force resigned in Goodhue, Minn., in August. Thirty-five municipal police departments throughout the state have dissolved since 2016, according to records kept by the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training. About 400 remain.
With police under more scrutiny in the last decade, fewer people are joining the profession, said Jim Mortenson, executive director of Brooklyn Center-based Law Enforcement Labor Services. Nearly 260 agencies in Minnesota had jobs posted last week.
And rural cities paying less than urban centers play a big role in the problem, Mortenson said, noting pay for Moose Lake officers is near the bottom for cities statewide with populations between 2,000 and 5,000.
“You’ve got a lot of communities and counties that are throwing money at this to attract candidates,” he said, “and those that are working in these smaller communities are sliding over for more pay.”
Public safety would have made up a major portion of Moose Lake’s $2.8 million 2024 budget — about $900,000 for a five-person force, said Ellissa Owens, its city administrator.
Nearly 90% of property tax proceeds alone would have gone to the police department after a 28% cost increase this year due to police health insurance changes, she said, forcing a reliance on local government aid to pay for other city departments. The City Council chose to reduce the size of the force to be able to fund the department, opting against replacing two of the officers last fall.
It will now consider moving to a four-person Carlton County Sheriff’s team that will work out of Moose Lake, a cheaper option and one that covers more shifts.
“The city is not defunding law enforcement,” Owens said.
Like many rural towns, the Moose Lake department covers several surrounding townships and cities. Moose Lake has attempted to form a tax district to help pay for its law enforcement services, but has been unsuccessful several times.
The city is unusual in that it’s home to the prisoners of the Minnesota Correctional Facility and residents of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program. Together, they make up about half of the city’s population. Between those facilities and others that are tax-exempt, only 30% of city land is taxable, Owens said, keeping property tax proceeds low and contributing to budget woes.
The presence of those facilities is one of the reasons Moose Lake needs its own force, said former officer Jason Syrett, who resigned in August and took a job with the local school district’s transportation department. He lacked confidence in city administration, he said.
Despite the city’s small size, its location next to Interstate 35 and the existence of the state facilities make Moose Lake a busy place. And he doesn’t believe money paid to Carlton County for deputies will benefit Moose Lake.
A contract with Carlton County will result in less coverage than a hometown police force offers, he said.
Pattison said he hopes to get the chance to rebuild the department in a city where community policing plays a big role.
“I can get out and get to know people and I am not just running from call to call,” he said. “That’s why I decided to stay.”
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
